Hardware and Software

After laying out my rough ideas for the project it would be a good time to explain the hardware and software I intend to use to bring the ideas to life. As I am working alone I can afford to use my own equipment and software as I do not have to edit in college where the whole group would have access to it. This is lucky as college does not have the software I need to put my ambitious ideas into place and also the sheer amount of time I will have to put into post production wouldn't be able to be realistically achieved in two weeks worth of lesson time (the allocated editing time for our projects).


Hardware list :

Sony Handycam DCR-SR37E - 60gb hard drive means no need for tapes and worrying about running out of DV tape

Sony CyberShot DSC-W180 - Lightweight 10.1 megapixel stills camera

Wacom A6 Graphics Tablet - Useful for compositing and photomanipulation programmes, plus sketching storyboards

3 X 150W Halogen floodlights - For shadow cancelling on the greenscreen

Greenscreen - Large piece of solid colour green cloth for chromakey and kelight


Software list:

Adobe After Effects CS4 - Invaluable tool useful for keying out the greenscreen, sky replacement, particle effects, grading and more

Adobe Premiere Pro 7.0 - The editing software I will be using to make my rough and final cuts

Adobe Photoshop CS - Useful for everything  from creating textures for composites in After Effects to designing the CD covers for anciliary tasks

Paint Shop Pro 8.0 - A similar software to photoshop but simpler to use and offers different effects, I have many useful brush presets for this software

Cool Edit 2.0 - Professional sofware for manipulating sound. I will use this to cut and clean up my audio track

Xilisoft Converter - File converter for changing video formats to more manageable ones

Magic Bullet Colorista & 1.5 - Plugins for After Effects for professional colour grading


If any aditional software is used I will mention it in a future post with my production notes and photos.